No more unipolar, bipolar or multipolar. The name of the new rule will be a technopolar world order, which will be defined by the war between corporations.
From the end of the Second World War until the beginning of the new millennium, the question "who rules the world?" could be roughly answered clearly. In the beginning, we could talk about the bipolar world order, which was dominated by two large blocs, led by the USA and the Soviet Union. Practically all countries in the world have positioned themselves in relation to these two.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States was left alone on the throne. The USA dictated, and events in every case (due to diplomatic or violent persuasion) took place as it suited Washington.
The unipolar world order began to erode around the turn of the millennium, when the United States became more interested in its own internal operations than in shining as the savior of global values.
Taking advantage of the break, more and more states dared to use the right of pragmatic thinking, and in the background, the regional central powers, whose role is now unquestionable not only in the world economy, but also on geopolitical maps, strengthened nicely. The strange world order thus formed was no longer unipolar, but it would have been premature to call it full-fledged multipolar.
The causes of geopolitical recession
In his latest article, Ian Bremmer, president of the political risk consulting company Eurasia Group, traces the current situation, the transition between unipolar, multipolar and some kind of world order, to three reasons.
The first is that the West considered Russia an outsider and not an equal partner. After a while, Moscow became satisfied with the situation and committed itself to anti-Westernism that continues to this day, viewing the West and especially the European Union as a puppet theater controlled by Washington, which only wants to use the world outside its bubble for colonization and plunder.
The second is that at the same time as Russia's neglect, it was possible for China to enter Western institutions, which made it possible to establish its world trade hegemony, while in its own economy, Beijing maintained the hybrid model based on public-private intertwining, which is completely unimaginable for Western countries.
The third is that
the West, falling in love with its own liberal ideology, forgot to pay attention to its own citizens.
The phenomenon of distrust, anger towards governments, growing wage inequalities, and uncertainty caused by changes in demographic and identity politics also reared its head in Western societies, which ultimately called into question the raison d'être of democracies and the competences of leaders in several places.
Everything related to emerging geopolitical crises in the world, writes Bremmer, including the war in Ukraine, the Taiwan problem or even the renewed nuclear tension, can be traced back to these three problems. But like all recessions, the geopolitical one will be temporary. Something must come after it, which may be completely different from what we thought about it.
Towards technopolarity
According to Bremmer, this something is none other than the digital world order, in which the dominant players who make the rules and exercise power will no longer be governments, but tech companies. The question is no longer whether human nature is determined by heredity or upbringing, but to what extent it is influenced by algorithms.
The digital world order has become and will become decisive in how we live, what we believe in, what we want - and what we are willing to do to get it
- writes Bremmer, pointing out that technology companies now have such economic, political and influence power that they have become a geopolitical factor in themselves.
"Profit-oriented tech players have already taken over the controlling role in the social, economic and national security segments that were previously the exclusive purview of governments. The private decisions of corporate leaders affect the way of life and the way of thinking of billions of people. In this way, they are increasingly shaping the global environment, which has been influenced by governments up until now," he says to get to the question:
how will the companies use or take advantage of the enormous power that suddenly fell into their laps?
Battlefields
According to Bremmer, three scenarios are possible. In the first, American and Chinese tech companies line up alongside their respective governments, and as a result of the economic conflict between the two countries, a technological cold war begins. As the digital world splits into two parts, third countries will be forced to choose sides based on the old recipe, which will lead to the fragmentation of globalization.
According to the second possible scenario, tech companies will insist on their global growth, therefore they will not choose a side at all, but will try to remain sovereign, and will largely compete with each other completely and exclusively for profit. This presupposes a globalized digital order in which companies fight their own battles in the digital space.
The third scenario is perhaps the scariest. According to this
the arena of great power competition will be the digital space itself, where the power of tech companies is greater than that of governments,
and a post-Westphalian type of technopolar order will emerge, which will be dominated by the companies themselves as the main geopolitical actors.
Which of the three will be realized, and whether any of them will be realized at all, depends to the greatest extent on
how the explosive development of artificial intelligence causes changes in the current power structures, and whether governments want (and if so, to what extent) to restrict tech companies.
And, of course, primarily from how technology leaders feel about their own, previously unimaginable power - and how they intend to use it.
Featured Image: Pixabay
